The air shimmered and flowed. Long tubes with pointed ends and stiff wings zoomed past her vision, trails left in their wake like tears in a lake’s surface.
Nareko peered through one tear, ignoring the whizzing noise as the tube, roughly the length of her arm, slid along the purples and whites of the mirage’s boundary. Through the opening, she could see the flowing blonde hair of the sitting woman. Her knees pulled up to her chest, her flowing white dress covered in dirt and mud from the forest floor.
“Nina!” Nareko shouted, estimating perhaps a dozen meters between them. The tear sealed shut without a response, returning her vision to the shimmering wall. “Answer me, Nina!” Her boot stomped against hard dirt, echoing along the trees alongside her voice. The shorter of her golden staves hovered in one hand, grip tightening to compensate for sweating palms.
“She’s been in there all morning.” The voice from behind Nareko had a slight growl underneath, like a throat perpetually parched. The dousojin tapped her longer staff against the ground like a walking stick as she turned.
Chimi’s six gigantic ears framed her like a wild mane of hair, covered in fur that began white before spreading like the feathers of a tropical bird. The ancient youkai let her eyes drop, looking more apologetic than worried. Chimi rarely worried.
“Thought she’d respond to you.” She shrugged. “I’m sure the shrine maiden or someone will come along soon enough.”
Nareko adjusted her grip on the curving staff, its tip like a shepherd’s hook hovering at her head. A glance towards either shoulder confirmed the mirage as trailing off in a large cube, its walls stretching high towards the canopy. Nina’s illusions were hardly subtle. The glowing lights of her artificial world bounced off twisted roots and tree trunks, Nareko’s own golden jewelry and tools seeming to flash occasionally.
“I should stay.” She nodded. “Make sure no one wanders into it. Hate for someone to be stuck in Nina-land.” Nareko figured that was the real risk, after all.
“You up for the shift?”
Nareko’s boots scraped along the ground, cracking a stick as she adjusted her stance. “God of roadsides.” The dousojin smirked. “Keeping a boundary is what I was made for.”
“Right.” Chimi was already back to smiling, raising her arms up high to stretch them. “Shouldn’t be too long. They already pulled her out of one of those before, right?”
Nareko’s palm continued to sweat. The cold metal of one of the staves slipped and she adjusted her grip on it. “Yeah.” Another whirring sound raced by behind her.
Chimi’s grin shifted to neutrality as she shifted out of Nareko’s sight, a turn bringing her back around to face the mirage. Nina hadn’t moved; she wouldn’t move on her own. The tear sealed, the curved end of the golden shepherd’s hook nearly brushing the shimmering wall. Nareko just had to wait and hold the boundary, let someone cross and collect Nina, and then they would head home.
Back to their old shed, Nina would insist on saving some old stick, claiming it had some deeper use as termites chewed at it. Nareko just had to wait, and those exhausting ordinary days would be back. Her golden staff flashed beneath the wall’s flow again.
Leaves cracked under Chimi’s footsteps, closing in on the dousojin’s back.
Nareko’s boots were already through. She shifted one shoulder forward, as if intending to shove the wall down by physical force. The world went white and purple and blue, as if a paintbrush swept across her eyes.
She was falling. Maybe. Could someone actually fall? Surely falling only happened when those with control of gravity decided someone needed to fall, right?
Nareko’s knees bent forward as she braced herself against the wall. The cottage was brighter than she thought it should be, sunlight shining in through the open doorway. No, not a cottage. It was a shed, she reminded herself, looking up and scanning the floor and table and futons along the floor. The tatami mats of the floor looked like they would be more comfortable than the wall, stacked stones of painted reds, greens, and blues shimmered as the sunlight caught them, carrying the glow of outside further into the abode.
Abode was fine; semantics weren’t worth it. More worth it was the man who stood on the floor, which meant he stood above Nareko. Dressed in a black suit with green scales covering his skin, he shook a fist at the dousojin. He seemed annoyed at her decision about gravity.
Nareko tilted her head, studying the strange youkai. “Are reptilians youkai?” She wondered aloud, earning more shouting that was felt more than heard. The air between them shimmered with the question, but no answer found her.
His face didn’t have scales. Nareko’s attention kept returning to that: the strange way scales along his neck simply became painted green skin, and the way his collar seemed to vanish into the rest of his suit.
Her right hand raised her smaller staff, the one she had always compared to a giant key with its one circular end and pointed cross that sat opposite. Ankh. The word brushed her mind, alongside ‘litter spike.’
Styrofoam, plastics, rotting wood, or rusted steel. She had cleaned up the trails along Gensokyo many times since she had left the altar behind. Stab, lift, and into the pockets of her shorts.
The pointed end of the ankh stabbed upwards. The reptilian was gone before she had even blinked, a flowing piece of paper stuck to the end of her staff. No one controlled gravity. “Gravity is just… down, you idiot!”
Nareko’s stomach filed a complaint as the separated segments of her hair spread wide and fanned towards the floor. Her boots left the wall, and the world flipped around the dousojin. Her side impacted the dirt with a shout, the tatami mats gone.
Long stalks of wheat flowed above her, her elbow pushing down on the ground and forcing Nareko to her knees. The food supply was carefully maintained to keep the humans nervous. Her boots stomped along the trail through the farmland, watching as a short girl with green hair ran between stalks with a spray bottle.
The spiked staff stabbed forward again. The humans of the village were vital to Gensokyo, interfering was a good way to get the shrine maiden mad at you.
Her footsteps echoed off flagstone then, crossing a maintained courtyard. The painted red torii gate towered behind her, and Hakurei Shrine was ahead. Nareko recognized Reimu’s red-and-white flowing clothes, a gohei longer than she was tall.
The shrine maiden spoke with a tengu woman, obviously conspiring to utilize their spy network.
“She’s not that tall.” Nareko swept her staff through the image, letting the world shimmer again. “And the tengu constantly write stories about her.”
“The dollmaker can’t make ‘spy drones.’” Another stab at the tiny blonde doll.
A swing through the green-haired shrine maiden of the mountain. “If they could control minds, their shrine would get more visitors.”
Both hands briefly took the staff, stabbing towards the ground. “And tin foil is an amplifier!” She grunted, the metal point piercing the crumpled aluminum hat on the ground.
Pulling the point towards her face, Nareko sighed, sweat pooling down her forehead. The pointed end of the ankh was covered in debris, the dousojin reaching to pull it free while her longer staff rested against her shoulder.
Water lapped at her boots, her next couple of steps forward causing the sea to splash up and assault her legs and shorts. A wall of shimmering blue rose before her, the wave roaring forward. The tides of earth stirred to violence by Lunarian progress on the moon.
Nareko tilted her head. That one might be true. The hooked end of her longer stave rose, swinging through the air and splitting the wave in two. Water sparkled in the air, the space flashing violently in various colors as the sea behind her roared and rippled.
Steadily, the water calmed. The space did not change to a new mirage, the water staying roughly at Nareko’s ankles. The sky shone blue above her, a faint fog surrounding the site.
A massive clam rested in the surf, its top opened like a hinge, a purple tongue acting like a seat for the shen youkai resting atop it. Nina was facing away, her legs stretching out to one side beside her, hand reaching up and letting her fingers run through her hair.
“Nina!”
The reaction was quieter than Nareko expected. A brief glance over her shoulder before Nina turned away again. “Oh, Nareko.”
The dousojin frowned. “That’s it?” She stomped forward, kicking up the water anew before stopping at the edge of the clam.
“I want to keep the chair.” She knew Nina was pouting. “It’s comfortable!”
Nareko stared for a moment. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re the fourth Nareko!” Nina shifted to face her again. “You show up and complain about a mess, and then you say we’ll get mochi! Or dango! Or visit the shrine! And then you disappear.”
Nareko’s mouth opened, responses swimming in her mind. A roar drowned her out, drawing both women’s eyes skywards. One of the strange tubes passed overhead, an airplane now dozens of times larger than she had first thought from outside the mirage.
“I didn’t think she’d be so hard to make believable.” Nina looked away again. Her hand rose and gave a wave in Nareko’s direction, the shen youkai’s shoulders dropping as she sighed. “I bet she’s happy to have the cottage to herself.”
The world seemed to pulse, fog and water and clam shaking like jelly. Nareko was still for a moment, watching Nina return to silence, looking like she was about to vanish into her dress and hair.
Nareko’s grip on her curving staff shifted lower, her arm raising. “I am a place with no destination.” Its end landed hard on the clam’s tongue.
Nina jumped, spinning herself around to look at the dousojin again. Her mouth fell open.
“You may arrive at me, you may leave from me.” Water splashed up as Nareko lifted one leg, letting her boot hook onto the edge of the clam’s shell. “But you may never mark me on a map. You may never give directions to me.”
The dousojin pulled her other leg up, straightening her knees until she stood atop Nina’s seat. She towered over the stunned shen, raising both staves in front of herself and crossing her arms.
“I am here.”
Nina finally managed to gasp, planting her hands down and pushing herself to her feet. “Hor-em-akhet!”
“Still not my name.”
Both women stood straight, staring at each other. Nina smiled, and Nareko grinned despite her best efforts.
“That riddle was terrible.”
“You put me on the spot!”
Nina’s laughter spilled free as soon as Nareko’s expression shifted to a pout. The dousojin uncrossed her arms, planting her stave back down.
“Okay. Let’s go home.”
Nina’s smile died, and it was her turn to frown. “No.” She shook her head. “I’m fine. You can leave me.”
The metal of Nareko’s staff felt cold under her grip again. “Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m a headache.” Nina’s shoulders dropped again.
“Okay…?” Nareko trailed off.
“Gods and youkai cohabiting is considered a bad omen. When I lure someone into the woods, you’ll be blamed. The villagers-”
The shepherd’s hook collided with Nina’s forehead with a ‘bonk.’
“Ow!”
“Are you planning on eating someone?”
“Of course not!” Nina rubbed her head. “But you were assigned to watch over me, and you’re always stomping and yelling! Youkai attacks are a leading cause of stress! If I just stay here, you can have the whole cottage to yourself!”
Nareko stared, reaching down into the pocket of her shorts. “You sound awfully lucid right now.”
Nina looked past the dousojin, gazing off into the fog surrounding them. “I think you might be to blame.”
“I suppose I did go on a rampage.” Nareko pulled the wadded tin foil free, gripping it with both hands. “Is that how you really feel?”
Nina watched her work at the tin foil, leaning closer. “I… think so?” She pursed her lips. “I just wanted to think about it all at first. But the second Nareko said she would be better on her own.”
Nareko nodded, shifting the shaped aluminium in her hands briefly to check the shape. It vaguely resembled a hat, albeit frayed and torn at multiple points. Waves licked at the edge of the clam, and the blue sky shone above.
The tin foil suddenly crumpled against Nina’s head with the full force of Nareko’s palm. “You damn clam!” The dousojin shouted as she shoved the other youkai’s head down. “That is the most wrong thing you have ever said!”
Her free hand grabbed Nina’s shoulder, pulling her up to be eye level again. The tin foil still sat crumpled on her head, eyes wide and mouth open.
“I choose the headache!” Nareko gave her a shake.
“Huh?”
“Not the altar. Not a shed alone. Not a village gate.” Nareko stared. “You. Every time, you idiot!”
A roar echoed above them, followed by more to their sides. The fog and blue sky ripped open like curtains. Trees and branches stretched towards them.
“But you don’t have to! I can leave!” Nina yelled.
“I don’t want you to!”
Their feet hit dirt and mud, the clam beneath gone. Nina’s mouth opened and closed once.
“You sure know how to keep people on their toes!” The sore-throated comment came from beside them. Chimi sighed audibly.
Nareko shifted, tearing her gaze away from Nina to look back at the ancient youkai. “I… uh…”
“Don’t bother.” Chimi was already turning around. “Just do it faster next time.” She stepped back into the shadows of the trees before fading from sight.
Nareko pursed her lips briefly, feeling her sleeve be pulled.
“Nareko?”
She turned, catching red on Nina’s face. The shen tried to hide it by looking down quickly.
“Can we get mochi on the way home?”
Nareko tried to shove the memory of what she had been saying away, nodding slowly. “Yeah. Sure.” She reached up, gripping the crumpled tin foil and retrieving it. “Good to have you back.”
“Thanks,” Nina mumbled. “Did you… mean all that?”
Nareko groaned. “Don’t make me say it again!” She turned, grabbing the shen youkai’s hand to pull her along.
